


A Rocky Beginning

by hurriedScrawling



Series: Horrorbent [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Horror, Eye Trauma, Scourge Sisters, Torture, the Maryam Sass stance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-08 15:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1945737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurriedScrawling/pseuds/hurriedScrawling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terezi attempts to prove herself to her Scourge Sister by breaking the world's oldest taboo, also there's horror terrors</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gazing Hours

**Author's Note:**

> art by Paperseverywhere

“Explain to me again, dear, why you think it’s a good idea to go to your friend’s hive on your own when you know how dangerous it is to go anywhere during gazing hours?”

The adult teal-blooded troll towered over her daughter, hands behind her back as she addressed her. Terezi had always been adventurous even for one only six years old, but the gazing hours were when it was required for everyone of the Kingdom to remain in doors and not think about the sky. The young troll had her hands behind her back, head looking at the floor that was suddenly so interesting.  
“Well?” Redglare asked again, eyes narrowing behind her glasses.

“I was just gonna go to Vriska’s and play, I wouldn’t be outside long, they wouldn’t have seen me,” she mumbled, still not making eye contact with her mother.

“Terezi, you know better,” she scolded, bending down to Terezi’s level and tilting her chin up so her daughter would look at her. “You know they see everything.”

She pouted. “Nuh-uh, they can only see what’s out in the open!” she countered in that voice that kids used when they were determined that they were right about something.

Redglare sighed and stood up, taking her glasses off to pinch the bridge of her nose in exasperation, “Please Terezi just promise me you won’t go out during the Gazing hours, talk to your friend Vriska online if you really want to interact with her but you need to know we can’t go outside sometimes, for your own safety.”

Terezi scowled, but she knew she wouldn’t be going to Vriska’s hive tonight; her mother would lock the doors to be sure she didn’t try to sneak out. “Okay I promise.” She was totally bullshitting though; she was six, and she couldn’t see the cause for concern that the adults had in things like this, so there was absolutely no reason for her to be serious about a promise not to do a “dangerous” thing that she didn’t see as dangerous.

At least that’s what she told herself as she sulked off to her room, moving over to her computer to message her Scourge Sister.

\-----gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-----

GC: MOM S4YS 1TS TOO DANG3ROUS TO GO OUT

GC: S4YS G4Z1NG HOURS 4R3 B4D BL4H BL4H BL4H

AG: Whaaaaaaaat? That’s 8ullshit, when was the last time anyone ever died during gazing hours? Well, anyone who wasn’t a total idiot for getting spotted.

GC: 1 KNOW R1GHT?

AG: So are you going to sneak out?

GC: 1 DONT KNOW

GC: MOM W4S PR3TTY 4D4M3NT 4BOUT M3 NOT GO1NG

AG: Terezi that just means you have to sneak out!!!!!!!!

AG: O8viously if she doesn’t want you to go somewhere she’s testing you.

AG: So you have to come over to prove yourself!

GC: 1 DONT TH1NK TH4TS HOW TH4T WORKS

GC: 1N F4CT DONT YOU 4LW4YS L1ST3N TO YOUR MOTH3R

AG: That’s different!

AG: Terezi. If you don’t sneak out tonight I will be so disappointed in you.

AG: You will have failed to uphold your Scourge Sister duties and I will have to find someone else to help with my irons.

AG: That are in the fire.

AG: Terezi.

AG: There are so many irons.

AG: And do you know where they all are?

GC: G33 VR1SK4 COULD TH3Y B3 1N TH3 F1R3?

AG: They are a8solutely in the fire!!!!!!!!

AG: 8ut my point is you need to get your 8utt over here and retain your title as num8er two Scourge Sister!

GC: H3Y 1 THOUGHT 1 W4S NUMB3R ON3 4ND YOU W3R3 NUMB3R TWO?

AG: No I’m pretty sure I’m Sister 1.

AG: 8ut! If you can manage to get here I’ll use my authority of Oneness to make you Sister A.

GC: TH4T SOUNDS 1NCR3D1BLY STUP1D

AG: So you won’t do it?

GC: 1 D1DN’T S4Y TH4T >:]

GC: 1 C4NT H4V3 YOU T4LK1NG 4BOUT R3PL4C1NG M3 4ND B3SM1RCH1NG MY N4M3

AG: Good 8ecause having to deal with filling out all the paperwork to replace you would have 8een annoying.

AG: Now get your 8utt over here Pyrope!!!!!!!!

GC: 1M GO1NG!!

\-----gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-----

You are now Terezi Pyrope, six year old daughter of Neophyte Redglare, Lawbringer of the High Throne and you’re about to break one of Kingdom’s biggest taboos and go outside during Gazing Hours. You’ll need to prepare yourself--your mother won’t be asleep for another hour, but you need to shut Vriska up and prove yourself as a Scourge Sister. She’ll shut up about replacing you once you’ve snuck all the way to her house during the most dangerous time of the night and proved yourself.

You know your mother usually goes to bed late, if only because she works so much. She’s a great mom, but she’s obviously wrong about how great you are--you can totally get to Vriska’s house without getting spotted! So you wait until she’s gone to her room for the night and then you re-lace your red shoes, throw on your dragon cloak and you sneak as carefully as you can downstairs to the front door.

The door chain is a little out of your reach, but you use your cane to help get it undone, reaching up on your tiptoes to slide it off and then smirking as it falls free. As quietly as you can, you open the door and step outside onto your porch.

You stand under the awning outside your door; every house has one, it’s especially important during the Gazing Hours. Above you, in the sky, you can see them. Eyes. Thousands of them, staring down at the city with baleful gazes from the blackness of space overlooking the land of Arkwhich. You lived in the capital of Kingdom, the largest city through all of existence and the home of the High Throne, where the King in Yellow sat reigning over all eternity.

You know the moment you step off the awning you’ll be in danger of them spotting you…and honestly, you can feel your stomach sink, because this is a little more intimidating than you expected it to be. They span on as far as your eyes can see, endless and eternal, and you know that it’s always been like this. There has never been anything in the sky other than the eyes; for twelve hours, once every three weeks, they look down, providing some degree of light.

The Gazing Hours were described as a time when everyone was to remain hidden. Parents told their children that it was a time for fear and silence, for remaining unseen and for staying out of the street. For just a moment, under the unblinking gaze of the uncountable eyes above you, you felt small, insignificant, and unimportant. How could you matter under the vastness that was whatever it was those eyes belonged to?

 

 

No.

Fuck that.

You are Terezi motherfucking Pyrope and you’re going to be a great Lawbringer someday! Your mother’s shoes will be hard to fill but you will do it, and you’re certainly not going to let some eyes in the sky stop you from getting to your Scourge Sister’s house and proving yourself to her AND the eyes in the sky! You take a shuddering breath to strengthen your resolve, looking around off the patio for the nearest entry to the Ratway.

The Ratway entrances were troublesome things really, they were always moving from one place to another. You’d used them before to take shortcuts to Vriska’s in the past; she somehow always got them to go where she wanted them to go. You wish you’d thought to ask her to somehow make you a quicker shortcut this time around as well.

Ah! There’s one, a hole in the earth, not four feet from your porch. It would be close but you think you can get to it quickly enough. You look up, waiting for a cloud to pass overhead so the eye above your house won’t spot you right away. It takes a couple of minutes, but the shadow of the cloud comes and you race forward, bounding off the porch and diving into the Ratway. You take a moment, holding your breath once you’re in, listening for the screaming of the Endless Horrors that were said to come after anyone who was seen during the Gazing Hours… but they don’t come. With a sigh of relief, you get up and look around.

The Ratways are a huge complex of tunnels that were constantly moving under the city. No one knows where they come from…okay, that’s not true, you don’t know where they come from but you’re sure someone must. You’re six you’re allowed to be dramatic. The Ratway was home to, most notably, rats, as well as some ghouls, various homeless from the three races, and some rabid lusii, if the rumors were true.

And in Arkwhich, rumors have a way of becoming true on their own if you’re not careful with whom you gossip to.

You brush the dirt off your pant legs and nod seriously, starting to move forward through the tunnel complex. You have absolutely no idea where you’re going, but a friend once told you that if you move with purpose through the Ratway, they will get you where you need to go without trouble. The only issue being that they take you where they think you need to go, and sometimes the tunnels and the one who was moving through them didn’t always agree on where they were needed most.

You walk for about a half an hour before you come to your first waycrossing group, a pair of trolls, both coldbloods in rags, sitting with a human and a black carapace. They were all homeless from the look of it and both of the trolls had scars on their foreheads where their symbols were supposed to be.

“Hello!” you greet cheerily, following the traditions of Ratway crossings to greet with a smile.

One of the Highbloods, a large purpleblood, looks up and smiles. “Hello,” he returns in a gravelly voice. The human follows suit, and while you can’t see the carapace’s mouth, he gives an enthusiastic wave. The other highblood, a blueblood from the looks of him, is silent and doesn’t look up. He was inviting bad luck like that. “What’s a kid like you doing down here in the Ratway during the Gazing Hours?” the first highblood asks curiously, taking a piece of bread with salt on it and breaking off a piece to hand to you.

The larger group always offers food to the smaller ones, the saying went. You accept the food and take a bite, grinning. “I’m going to a friend’s house,” you explain proudly, putting your hands on your hips. “Just because it’s the Gazing Hours doesn’t mean doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to go see my buddies.”

The highblood and the human exchange looks, and the human speaks first. He runs a hand through his messy black hair and his dark brown eyes dart around like he’s worried someone will overhear. “Kid, it’s pretty dangerous to go outside or above ground when the eyes are looking,” he says, “You could stay down here until the Hours are up.”

You shake your head. “Nope, I’ll be fine!” You grin, showing off your pointy fangs “If I stop for too long I’ll get stuck down here for longer than I want to anyway, but I know where I’m going and how to get there so I’ll be okay!” You don’t wait around for them to reply to that--you know it’s important to keep going, so you hurry along and pick the pathway leading out of the crossing that your gut tells you to.

It takes another hour, but finally you feel the tunnel starting to go up again; you know you’ll be arriving where you need to be soon. You just hope it’s where you think you need to be.

You come to your exit and carefully look out the hole in front of you, finding yourself under the porch of someone’s house. You sigh with relief once you’re out, glancing up to find yourself under a tree… in a neighborhood you don’t recognize.

“You can’t fucking be serious,” you groan in dismay, a hand going to your forehead. The Ratways brought you somewhere completely different then where you wanted to go! You can’t believe this you were doing so well too! With an aggravated sigh you try to figure out where you are, looking around. It’s a part of the city you’re not familiar with; the spires and cathedrals don’t reach up as high as where you live. You make a B line for the closest porch, intent to wait there until another Ratway Tunnel opens up and you’re just so utterly frustrated.

So much so that you forget to wait for a cloud to pass before you move out from under the tree.

You feel the screaming before you hear it, an unreal and deep bone chilling sound that you can hear in your head more than in your ears. You look up fearfully to find every eye above you gazing down at you, fixated on your being, and you sink to your knees, that feeling of insignificance returning as the sky looks down at you.

The earth beneath you trembles and your heart lurches as you hear wingbeats over your head, and you cry out, burying your face in your hood and you fear for your life for all of a moment before you hear a familiar voice.

“Terezi!”

Your mother. She found you. You don’t know how, but she found you. You can still feel the screaming in your head as you look up, your mother on the back of her partner, the massive Pyralspite flying overhead and she leaps down, landing in front of you, “Mo-” she cuts you off as she reaches down and hauls you up by the scruff of your dragon cloak, her expression one of fury and worry.

“What the hell were you thinking?!” she demands, and there’s…fear in her voice. Why is your mother afraid? She’s your mother, she isn’t afraid of anything.

“Oh, well this is unfortunate, isn’t it, Neophyte?” comes a voice from behind you that you don’t recognize, and you find yourself held close to your mother as she turns around. “Here I thought I’d find some fool out during the Gazing Hour, but it’s none other than one of our greatest Lawbringers and her daughter? So scandalous.” The voice is…friendly. Almost like it’s enjoying a joke, and you can feel your mother shaking and that scares you more than the eyes in the sky do.

“Please,” you hear her begging and she’s holding you in a way where you can’t see anything but the front of her uniform, “Please don’t take her.”

“You know I have to take someone, Neophyte, I mean, where would that put our society if some people got special treatment? It’d be chaos!” The voice laughs; it makes you feel sick to your stomach, and your mother’s grip on you tightens.

“I know how you work Nihlus,” she says, her voice hollow and unlike you’ve ever heard it. “What will it take?”

Another sickeningly jovial laugh, and you whimper. “She can hardly go from this unscathed…nor can you, but if you’d take the entirety of her punishment I might consider leaving her unharmed.” What? What’s he going to do to you? What’s he going to do to your mother?

“…Give me your word.”

You can practically hear him smirking as he speaks again. “You have my word as kith and kin of the Noble Circle; I won’t do anything to your daughter so long as you cooperate.”

There’s a long pause and you wiggle free from your mother’s grip enough to look up at her. “Mom, what are-”

“Terezi, hush,” she says, putting you down. “Don’t look back, don’t turn around, keep looking at your friend’s hive no matter what you hear. Do you understand me?”

“Mom, I don’t-“

“Do you understand me?” she demands again, gripping your shoulders enough to hurt, and you nod feebly. She lets out a shuddering sigh and hugs you. “No matter what happens, Terezi, I love you,” she whispers, and she stands up, moving past you. You do as she says.

“Now then,” comes the voice again, chipper and horrible. “Let’s see if we can’t resolve this issue.”

The sound that comes next you know will haunt you for years to come. Your mother screams in anguish, and you have to cover your ears and screw your eyes shut to be able to do what she told you to do. You smell something burning and Pyralspite lets out a mournful cry overhead. You start crying, teal running down your cheeks and you have to bite your lip to stay quiet, even though you doubt anyone could hear you over your mother’s cries.

Finally it’s too much for you, you turn around; you need to see that she’s okay and that you haven’t gotten your mother killed because you didn’t listen to her. The last thing you see is your mother on her knees, the front of her Lawbringer uniform is shredded and teal blood stains both her and the ground in front of her. Bright cerulean flames burn from where her eyes should be, two gouts of flame arching up above her as she claws at her face in a feeble attempt to put the fires out.

In front of her is a tall troll with unnaturally long limbs and horrible black wings with eyes like those in the sky on them in the place of feathers arching from his back. His armored robes glow with bright cerulean runes and every movement is distorted, like he’s not wholly there, his front covered in teal blood, your mother’s blood. He turns to look at you, a cheerful smile on his face, his eyes closed and just briefly he opens them--and your eyes meet.

And then your world burns and goes red, and then black, and you see no more.


	2. Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terezi calls for help and help apparently comes in the form of an aggressive driver for which the rules of safe driving do not apply

Terezi ==> Accept the consequences of your actions and deal with your newfound handicap like a mature adult

You fail spectacularly to accept what’s just happened to you. When you wake up your eyes still feel like they’re burning, there’s blood and tears down your cheeks and you can’t see anything. The Gazing hour is ended because the voices screaming in your head are gone and Pyralspite is on the ground, her head nuzzling against you as you whimper. Your mother can’t be dead. She can’t be. She’s the greatest Lawbringer Kingdom has ever known she wouldn’t die because of… of…

Because of you, a voice says in the back of your head. You went out when she told you not to. This is your fault. She did this to save you. You wail and you scream in frustration, pulling your hood down over your face. You can’t believe this has happened to you, this morning you’d woken up and you’d had a normal day and now… it felt surreal, like it was a bad dream. You heard stories about awful things happening to people when your mother would watch the news but to experience it….

You’re not sure how much longer you laid there before you finally pushed yourself up off the ground, feeling dizzy and your head was pounding. Pyralspite supports you as you lean against her long neck, feebly pulling yourself up to the spot at her shoulders where your mother rides. “I wanna go home,” you whimper, wrapping your arms around Pyralspite’s neck to secure yourself. With a rush of wind you feel her take off and you hold on as tight as you can.

It settles in as you’re flying that you’re blind, you don’t know what that… that thing did to you but every movement that jostles you as Pyralspite flies makes your head hurt and your eyes sting. You keep your hood low to keep the wind off of them and your thoughts turn again to your last sight before… before this. Your mother isn’t dead. She can’t be. You’re alive aren’t you and you’re not nearly as tough as her… and what are you going to tell Latula? How are you even going to get in contact with her?

You figure you’ll have to save such questions for later because you can feel Pyralspite descending. With a rumble the dragon lusus lands on the perch attached to the back of your large home, nestling down and letting you slide off. She croons sadly and curls up on the balcony perch, unable to assist you as you stumble into your house.

You have no way to see where you’re going and only the familiarity of your home to rely on as you stumble around to try and find a phone. You don’t have a handheld or a cellphone or anything, mom said you were too young, so you have to find one of the landlines. It takes some stumbling and you knock over a few things, you hear a lamp break at one point and spill a glass of something before you finally find one of the tables with a phone on it.

Dialing isn’t as difficult thanks to the placement of numbers on a phone being easier to locate then the placement of the phone itself, you just hope Latula has her phone on… or she’s awake. It occurs to you as the phone rings that you have absolutely no idea what time of day it is, she might be asleep for all you know.

There’s a click on the other end of the receiver and you let out a sigh of relief, “Hello?” comes the voice that is definitely not Latula’s.

“Hello?” You say again, the exhaustion clear in your voice, “Is Latula there?”

“Oh I’m afraid Latula is out for the night… is this Terezi?”

“Yes,” you say weakly, “I got hurt and Mom’s… I don’t know where she is, I can’t see anything.”

There’s a brief pause that lasts for all of a heartbeat before the person on the other line’s voices changes dramatically to one of concern and seriousness, “Are you okay? What’s happened? Where are you?”

The tears are coming back as you recall what you’ve just gone through, “N-no, I’m at h-home, I have blood on my face and I’m b-blind and mom’s… sh-she’s….” you can’t say it. You won’t believe it, she can’t be dead and you won’t say it.

“Sweetie I need you to stay where you are alright? I’ll be there as soon as I can with help, I’m a friend okay? I live with your sister, my name is Porrim.”

You’re fairly certain you’ve heard her name before, Latula mentioned her during one of her infrequent visits home, you’re sure of it. “Okay,” you murmur into the receiver, “Please hurry.”

“I’m on my way, just stay put.” The other end goes quiet and you turn the phone off and sit there on the floor, curling your knees up under your chin and wrapping your hands around your legs, curling up into a little ball while you wait for Porrim to come to you.

==> Be the concerned friend of an older sister

You are Porrim Maryam, and you hang up Latula’s phone (which she’d once again left in the room you two share) with a sigh, standing up from your bed and quickly moving to get dressed. You, like most residents of Kingdom who reach their sixteenth year without being dismembered, decapitated, or otherwise vanishing into the night to have horrible things happen to them, live at the Academy, a misleading term really as it’s not so much an academy as it is a big live in high school sort of thing. At least you will until you reach your adulthood and then… well you don’t want to think about that right now.

You throw on a pair of jeans and blouse and leave the room you share with Latula, moving down the hall to another room and knocking on the door. “Cronus answer the door,” you call. Normally you wouldn’t stoop to asking Cronus for a lift but he’s the only one who actually owns a means of transportation in your group of friends… using friends in the loosest possible sense of the word.

You can hear fumbling and something heavy falling over fervent swearing before the seadweller opens the door, his hair a mess and his shirt on backwards. “Oh uh hey Porrim, what’s up babe?” he asks, that shit eating grin of his spreading across his face as he leans against his door frame on his elbow, attempting to look cool. You do not have time for his flirting when there’s a kid out there who’s hurt.

“Not today Cronus,” you say dismissively in an attempt to circumvent any flirting, crossing your arms under your chest and jutting your hip out to the left in what has come to be known as “the Maryam sass stance” among your peers. “I need a lift to Latula’s house, her little sister is hurt and Latula is still out.”

He blinks in surprise, “Wait really? Geeze okay yeah I can get you there,” he says, straightening up and moving back inside, coming back out with his coat on “What happened? Any ideas?” He asked as the two of you moved down the hallway to head outside.

“No, the poor kid sounded terrified on the phone, she said her mother was missing and she couldn’t see anything.”

“Like she couldn’t see anything like it was dark or…?” he let the question hang in the air because in Kingdom there were quite a few things that could result in sudden blindness and none of them were good for one’s sanity.

“Let’s just hurry,” you say as you leave the building and enter the lot. “Where’s your car?”

He leads you to what could only be considered a car from an age ago. The chassis is covered in rust at the edges and the doors are all different colors like they’d been taken from other models, only one of the wheels has a hubcap, and one of the side mirrors is held on with duct tape. “Here she is,” he says proudly, like he’s not showing you something that’s probably a death trap.

“I don’t know what I expected,” you sigh as you get in the passenger seat, “I’ll navigate unless you’re going to tell me you somehow know where Latula lives?” you smirk and side eye the seadweller as he gets in, you’re joking but the way he’s avoiding eye contact makes you quirk an eyebrow at him. “Cronus do you know how to get to Latula’s or not?”

“I’ve been there before yeah,” he mutters as he puts the key in the ignition and starts the engine. Well he attempts to start the engine, it coughs and sputters the first time he turns the key, the second time he has more success but it doesn’t turn over all the way. “Come on,” he grumbles, the third attempt yields more success and the car starts, “Hah! There we go,” he exclaims, pumping a fist in success.

“Good can we go now? Remember the little girl I mentioned who was hurt and needed help? Yeah that’s still a thing,” you say, exasperation creeping into your voice.

“Right, sorry okay going now,” and he goes… about six miles per hour as he starts to leave the parking lot.

“Are you serious,” you deadpan, “Cronus did you miss the part where we had a sort of urgency here? My mother drives faster than you do and she’s dead.”

“Look Porrim I only just got my liscense a month and a half ago alright? I don’t want to go to fast and risk an accident or-”

You don’t let him finish before you’re opening the door to the car and you can literally walk around the front and open his door and get in and push him over to the next seat, “I don’t have time for this bullshit I’m driving,” you would have walked if you wanted to get there at this speed.

“Hey! Porrim you can’t just-”

“Shut up,” when you slam your foot down on the accelerator, you have just a moment before the car speeds off, going quick enough to stop Cronus from bitching so he’s more worried about holding on for dear life. You’ve driven before, a friend of your family has a car and he sometimes lets you drive it and you’re… not a bad driver but you might not be the safest of drivers. The fact that you’re going at least ten miles over the speed limit in a residential area certainly implies that.

You make it to Latula’s much quicker than you would have otherwise and pull up to the curb, getting out and thumping your hand on the roof of the car, “Come on Cronus you’re coming too.” You say offhandedly as you hurry to the front door, hoping it’s unlocked.

“Yeah just… give me a second,” he says shakily, he’s still got a white knuckle grip on the frame of the door. Well he’ll be along when he can you guess. You move to the door of the house, knocking twice and then trying the handle, thankful to find it’s unlocked. You push the door open and step inside.

“Terezi?” you call, looking around the house, trying to locate the young tealblood. “Terezi it’s Porrim, sweetie are you there?” There’s a moment of silence and you fear she may have passed out but you hear shuffling upstairs.

“I’m upstairs with Pyralspite,” you heave a sigh of relief and move upstairs quickly, heading towards the source of the voice. You do not, however, expect to see the ridiculously massive dragon perched on a balcony with its tail wrapped around a troll girl huddled in a red dragon cloak, the hood pulled down over her eyes. The dragon turns its gaze towards you and you think for just a moment you’re about to be vaporized.

Instead, the lusus lets out a low almost purring noise and shifts her tail some so you can get to Terezi. You move over towards her, bending down to place a hand on her shoulder. To her credit she only flinches a little and closer you can get a better look at her. Her front is stained with teal, you can smell the blood mingled with tears and as you pull her hood up you suck in your breath to stop yourself from letting on how bad it is.

The cells of her eyes must have been completely burned out as they’ve gone completely red, through the crust of blood around them you can make out newly formed scar tissue crisscrossing like broken glass leading up to just over her brow where her family’s symbol is stamped and down to her cheeks. You have absolutely no doubt in your mind that she’ll never be able to see again, whatever did this to her was magical in nature, something powerful.

Something Horror Terror.

You can’t focus on that right now though, you could tell over the phone that she’s still not totally ready to tell you what happened to her mother, especially with how recent this looks. You take a moment to compose yourself because you’re sort of mildly freaking out just a little bit and you don’t want to freak the kid out by freaking out yourself so when you talk again your voice is incredibly strained, “I’m going to get you cleaned up okay?” she nods and you scoop her up, taking her to the bathroom, which takes some looking before you finally find it. You sit her down on the sink and run water under the sink, taking a hand towel of the wall and wetting it before you start to gently clean the blood off of her face.

“Terezi,” you say softly when you manage to calm down a little yourself, trying to use the same tone of voice your mother used to use with you when you were upset, the same voice she used with Kanaya until a few years ago, “What did this to you? How did you get hurt?”

She’s quiet for a moment, not moving, not speaking and then like a fount it all comes out at once. She starts crying, leaning forward to wrap her around your waist and almost instinctively you’re cradling her against you. Through choked sobs she tells you what happened, how she snuck out during gazing hours even after her mother told her not to, how she didn’t end up where she wanted when she came out of the Ratways, how the eyes saw her, how her mother came to her rescue and gave herself up in her place and how some horrible thing burned out her mother’s eyes and then when she looked at it, it left her like this.

You take it all in once she’s done with her story and she’s still crying, and you’re just left sitting there in the bathroom holding a little girl who’s just lost her mother and quietly shoosh papping her because you can’t for the life of you think of what else someone could possibly do in this situation. It isn’t long before she’s cried herself to sleep in your arms and you just sort of sit there holding her tightly. You have several emotions vying for supremacy swirling around in your chest at the moment, the first of which is a rage that someone would do this to a little girl, the second is an almost sobering realization that this is a normal thing that could happen to other people you don’t know whenever someone goes outside at the wrong time.

There’s a sudden, crushing moment of clarity that this is accepted as normal and that no one will try to find Terezi’s mother, and you have no idea if they’ll send someone to collect her or to help her out here or if whatever took her mother will come back to finish the job with her. You’re a sixteen year old jadeblood and you’ve suddenly found yourself in a position where you absolutely refuse to leave this little girl to the winds of fate no matter what sort of danger it puts you in and it’s a weird feeling.

You stand up and carry her out of the bathroom, trying to sort out what you’re feeling right now, to the point you’d almost forgotten Cronus had come with you so you start a little when he speaks, “So…” comes Cronus’ voice as he leans against the wall next to the bathroom, a faraway look in his eyes. You figure he must have been listening in because he looks shaken, “I guess you’re staying here with her then? I should… probably get back to the Academy but if you uh… need a lift again or something just uh… give me a call I guess.”

You nod and cast a glance his way, “Yes… I think I should, if only because if I go back I’ll probably beat Latula into unconsciousness for leaving her phone behind and not knowing her sister needed her,” the more you think about it the angrier you are at Latula. If she hadn’t been out with… ugh you can’t even think about that whole mess she’s gotten herself in. Royals, ugh.

Cronus nods, “Right… well I’ll get going then,” you watch him hurry from the house and you wonder what’s got him so shaken. You don’t know a lot about where he’s from or if he can somehow relate to Terezi but you’ll worry about it later. You take the sleeping tealblood back to Pyralspite and lean her against the Lusus who then wraps her tail around her and brings her closer, cooing softly.

You move into the house and sit down on the couch, feeling suddenly exhausted. You don’t have any idea what you’re going to do to get this poor kid some help, her lusus might be able to do something though, you’d heard stories then the villages and towns outside of Kingdom often had lusus raising young trolls rather than the actual parents.

You’re going to have to make a list of things to worry about later at this rate, you’ve done what you could for now and that’s enough for you.


	3. Sisters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Latula finally shows up, she's late and she didn't even bring Starbucks, just anxiety and panic attacks
> 
> rude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final stretch for part one folks

Latula ==> wake up

You can’t remember how you got back to your room. You were in one of the clubs with your matesprit and drinking a lot and woops you guess you blacked out. Maybe there’s something to that underaged drinking thing being bad, you’re only sixteen after all. 

Nah probably not. What good is having a matesprit with royalty perks if he can’t get you into places you’re not allowed to go? Okay you’re not quite that shallow, you care about them a lot but still, maybe you should slow down just a little? Okay, just a little because holy shit does your head hurt. 

Groggily you sit up in your bed, looking around the room. Porrim isn’t here so it’s either really late and she’s already up or really early and she’s just not home yet. A quick check of your clock informs you that it’s late so she must be up already… wait what day is this. Are you missing classes? Shit you have to find your phone so you can check your calendar because wall calendars are useless if you don’t actually know what day it is to begin with. 

Where the hell is your phone anyway? You’ve just got on your shorts and a bra and it’s not in either of those- wait there it is. You lean off the bed as far as you can go without actually getting out of it over to the table between yours and Porrim’s beds and with the tips of your fingers you snatch up the phone. Hell yeah. 

You retreat back to your bed and hold your phone over your face, hissing as the screen lights up and holding it further away and- oh. There’s a bunch of different messages from Porrim here. Both voice messages and text messages. You play the first voice message, your brow furrowed as multiple messages from someone over a period of a few hours is never a good thing. 

“Latula, you forgot your phone again so I’m leaving you these so you’ll find them when you either get home or you regain consciousness, Terezi got… she got hurt, Latula, she’s blind, she went out during Gazing Hours and your mother’s… look just call me or come home to your house I’m here with Terezi she’s alive but she needs you here.” 

As the message plays you feel your stomach sinking and immediately you have to rush to the bathroom as your esophagus suddenly shrinks and you get a pretty clear view of what different colored beverages you consumed during your outing with your matesprit. You dress as fast as you can, just throwing on a t-shirt and jeans and your shoes before you grab your board and run out of the building before you start making your way home on your skateboard. 

Every story you’ve ever heard about people being out during the Gazing Hours rushes through your mind as you skate home and you can’t keep the pictures of your sister and mother dead or worse from floating to the forefront of your mind. How could you be so stupid how could you forget your phone your sister needed you and you were, holy shit you were out clubbing oh god you’re a bad cliché. 

This is all your fault this is completely your fault everything is your fault oh gods you forgot to take your medicine before you rushed out the door fuck, fuck, fuck. You’re already in tears by the time you get back to your house, running up to the door and throwing it open hard enough that it bounces off the wall “Terezi?!” you call through hysteric tears and race upstairs towards her room. 

You’re greeted by the sight of your room mate grabbing you and holding your shoulders with a surprising amount of strength, “Latula,” she says firmly “Latula calm down, take a deep breath.” She’s always been able to recognize when you’re having a panic attack, she probably knew you’d show up like this considering the messages she left on your phone. 

You try to take a deep breath but you just end up hiccupping and putting your hands on your head and starting to pull at your hair, “P-Porrim get out of my w-way where’s m-my Sister what happened to m-my Mom.” She can’t be dead, there’s absolutely no way she can be dead if Pyralspite was with her your mother’s an unstoppable force of the High Throne and not even the Great Hunt could fell your family’s Dragon Lusus. 

The Jadeblood’s grip tightens on you and her words are strained, “I need you to calm down your sister needs you and she needs you with your head on straight I know this is hard but please Latula I need you to take a deep breath and count to ten.” 

It takes every ounce of your willpower but you manage to take a deep breath and count. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. It does help some but you’ll have to check the medicine cabinet to see if you’ve still got some of your anti-anxiety medicine because your exercises can only do so much. She relaxes her grip on your shoulders and you can feel yourself slowly swinging down from your panic and you lean into her shoulders to hug her. “Thanks,” you mutter quietly and wipe your tears off your face, “Where’s Terezi?”

For the briefest moment there’s a pained look on her face and she points to the door to your mother’s room. You nod and move past her, pushing open the door. Your mother’s room was large with wooden floors and there were wards and sigils on her walls that kept prying eyes from anyone who wanted to scry her from seeing anything other than reruns of Full House. You’re not entirely sure how she managed that, your mother was a Lawbringer and most of them, to your knowledge, had only the barest understanding of runic majyyks for combat reasons. She must have gotten one of the Tower’s mages to help. 

In the center of the room, in the center of the bed was Terezi, curled up with her Lemonsnout scalemate wrapped in her cloak. You only recognize Lemonsnout because she told you over and over again what all their names were. Yes. It’s absolutely not because you are also a huge scalemate fan why would anyone think that. You move over to the bed, crawling up onto it next to your sister and putting a hand on her shoulder. “’Rezi?” you ask cautiously. 

She doesn’t say anything, she just sits up with her hood pulled down low over her face and crawls into your lap. She’s still small enough that she can pretty effectively sit in your lap and she takes full advantage of that, leaning up against you so that Lemonsnout squeaks between you. “M’sorry,” she mutters. 

“’Rezi what happened?” You ask reaching down to her hood to pull it off. The noise you make when you see your sister’s eyes is somewhere between a pained whimper and a gasp of shock. Oh gods your baby sister’s… she’s really blind. “O-oh,” you can feel your anxiety crashing in around you. Already blaming yourself for this and you’re starting to cry again shit you can’t believe this has happened. 

“Shoosh,” you start in surprise as you feel your sister’s smaller hand on your cheek. She’s… she’s papping you? There’s just a moment of appreciation for your amazing younger sister who despite her being the one who’s hurt is doing this to make sure you are okay. You hold her tight in a hug until you stop shaking again. 

“What happened?” you ask once you’ve finally settled down again, “Where’s mom?”

She squeezes you just a little tighter… “I went outside during Gazing Hours… I wanted to go see Vriska. Mom told me not to that it was dangerous and I didn’t listen. I took the Ratways, I followed all of the rules through it but it didn’t take me to her house I ended up somewhere else I didn’t even recognize and I got… the eyes saw me.” 

You would scold her for not listening to your mother but… it’s not like you have any room to talk. You disobeyed mom whenever you could as you got older you were in the middle of a spat with her last you talked in fact…. That thought does nothing to help you, you have to push that away, no. You bite your lip and give your little sister a little squeeze of reassurance. 

She takes a moment and then continues. “I don’t know how mom found me but she showed up almost right away with Pyralspite and… and then someone else did. Mom didn’t want me to look at him and she offered to go with him instead since… since they have to take you if you’re seen.” She starts shaking and being older you know the sorts of things that can happen if you’re seen. You understand the danger. 

“She told me not to look back and… and she cried mom was crying she’s not supposed to cry she’s our mom!” she’s angry now she’s trembling and her hands are curled into fists against your chest and you’re biting your lip to keep yourself from saying anything and interrupt her or to start sobbing again because you know what she’s going to say and you so desperately don’t want her to say it. 

“I looked back though I can’t do anything she tells me to do right and I saw… I s-saw her eyes b-burning and she was covered in blood and the… the troll with wings looked at me and m-my eyes hurt and n-now I’m b-blind. I w-woke up and Mom was g-gone and Pyralspite flew me h-home.” 

You’re biting your lip hard enough that you break skin and Terezi’s crying and you’re doing everything in your power not to cry and you know what’s happened to your mother now. 

The Emissary took her. 

You sit there with your sister and you’re not sure how long you both cried but at the end of it you’re wrapped in each other’s arms. You’ve run out of tears and are exhausted. “Did you take your medicine this morning?” she asks suddenly. 

You shake your head, “No… I forgot, I sort of ran out in a hurry to get here.” 

She pokes your stomach, “You said you’d remember,” she says in a chiding voice. 

You give a choked laugh and lift up a hand to wipe your eyes again, “Heh, yeah. Do you know if there’s any here?”

“There’s some in the cabinet above the sink in the kitchen with the other first aid stuff,” she says, “you should go take it.” 

“Alright,” you say, a half smile cracking through and you sit up with a grunt and carry your sister out of your mother’s room and downstairs to the kitchen. Porrim’s sitting on the couch and you give her a nod of thanks as you move to the kitchen, your sister insisting on you taking your medicine. 

Two pills for anti anxiety that was it. You’re aware of how lucky you are to live inside the capitol city where the technology necessary to produce this sort of medicine exists. You feel bad for people who live so far from the High Throne that their technology doesn’t work. You’ve heard there even countries so far away that they rely solely on rudimentary understandings of majyyk and live like savages. It sounds crazy to you but you’re learning that there are even Burgundybloods and Goldbloods with lands of their own that far out. 

You down the pills and help Terezi back out into the other room to sit on the couch with Porrim, you on one side of Terezi and your roommate on the other. You’re incredibly grateful to your roomie for coming out here to help and you’ll need to find a way to repay her. Not to mention figure out what you’re going to do from here. 

“So what happens now?” you mumble, leaning back on the couch and wrapping an arm around Terezi, “are more going to come for us?”

“I’ve no idea,” Porrim says, eyes towards the ceiling as she leans her head back on the couch. “The Gazing Hours being violated happens so infrequently that you don’t normally hear about it when it happens so I don’t know what they do if a parent is taken. Humans are lucky that they’ve got a spare in case they lose one.” 

You snort, “Yes it’s so unfair, if only troll genetic donors stuck around.” You think the way humans do things is weird. Trolls had it much simpler, a troll gets a quadrant, a troll gets knocked up or knocks up said quadrant, knocked up troll lays egg or eggs, whichever hemospectrum the egg matches for the quadrent, that parent takes it and raises it. Of course there were many instances where the two quadrents lived together but with the longevity of some trolls those quadrants didn’t usually last forever and it wasn’t uncommon for trolls to find themselves as single parents. 

Now that you think on it you’re not entirely certain who yours or Terezi’s genetic donors were. Not that it matters now you guess. “…I guess we could go stay with family friends if we had to. I don’t know who’d take us in but with Pyralspite it wouldn’t be hard to get places. I’m still in the Academy anyway but I’d feel better if ‘Rezi was somewhere nice and didn’t have to worry about an Emissary coming after her.” 

“Where’s Kanaya?” Terezi asks, poking Porrim. 

“At her friend Vriska’s, she’s been spending a lot of time over there; I would have taken you home with me otherwise.” 

You sometimes forget that Porrim had been raising Kanaya on her own until she came to the Academy. Trolls were incredibly self dependent from a young age, they certainly grew faster and did better on their own then humans did at least, a sixteen year old human would never be able to raise another human grub baby on their own. Having a lusus helps too but only to an extent. 

Terezi nods sagely and climbs down from the couch, “I’m going to go lay down with Pyralspite,” she says, moving over towards the stairs and you start to get up but Porrim puts a hand on your shoulder, stopping you. To your surprise Terezi seems to be having very little trouble navigating, well less then you expected anyway. She makes it to the stairs and scales them easily. 

“I think your dragon lusus might have some latent psionics abilities,” Porrim says, turning to look at you, “She’s spent most of the time in your dragon’s nest and has started sniffing things… I think Pyralspite might be teaching her to get around somehow.” 

“Yeah… Pyralspite taught me how to deal with not being able to smell… still I still can’t believe how she’s just… taking this in stride.” You lost your sense of smell due to some medical mishap when you were younger and it stressed you out to no end. You like to shrug off and say it doesn’t bug you but sometimes there’s days when you downswing and it’s harder to deal with, even if you’re not as bothered by it thanks to Pyralspite’s teachings. Your little sister lost her sight and her mother in the space of moments and she’s moving around and seems like she’s handling it… although you know better than most people that just because someone looks fine that doesn’t mean they are. 

“So… I know you probably don’t want to leave the city, especially with your matesprit living here but… it might be best to get away for a while you know?” Porrim offers, scooting closer to you, and wrapping an arm around your shoulder. You’re grateful to have her as a friend, especially to be willing to go so far to help Terezi. You haven’t’ solidified a diamond with her yet but you’ve been meaning to ask. 

“I’m not sure where we’d go… getting out of Kingdom is tricky as it is and if there really is going to be someone coming to collect us or something for losing our caretaker it might be even harder… although you’re right Pyralspite could definitely get us out of here easier than other people but I don’t want to leave my friends and I don’t want to drag Terezi out of here and uproot her life after everything that’s happened.” 

You let out a sigh and lean against the jadeblood’s shoulder, “This is a mess isn’t it.” You still have a sense of haze hanging over your head, like this hasn’t really happened. Although that might be the meds kicking in, you’re starting to get that feeling of sluggishness you get when you take them too late in the day, now your sleep schedule will be all over the place. 

“Yeah… I’m here for you if you need me ‘Tula,” Porrim says and you smile, feeling her arm wrap around your shoulders a bit tighter. 

“I don’t want to keep you if you’ve got to head out and pick up Kanaya from her friend’s house, especially if she’s at Aranea’s little sister’s place, they might never be able to leave she’ll go on for an hour about exposistionism or some random fact like the Desert Shykes or the Great Hunt or the Ratways and how they’re really the magical bones of a dead god that Kingdom was built on.” 

Porrim laughs, “Oh so you heard that one too? Has she droned on about the Dark Carnival’s exodus from Kingdom and how it could be a major threat? Or how the Guardians of the Green Flame and the Devil Beasts of Prospit to the north are another issue we might have to deal with.” 

“Oh my gods she goes on and on to the point I can’t even deal with staying awake while she’s talking I have resorted to just sort of stepping on my board without breaking eye contact and just sort of glide off.” You chuckle, you might be attempting to get some sort of black reaction out of Aranea by doing that but you haven’t decided if it’s a serious thing you’re doing just yet. 

The two of you just talk, gossiping about your classmates, how you’re doing in classes, how you might go into training to be Knighted, how she’s planning to get another lip piercing and some tattoos. It’s nice really, to have something grounding like this after everything that’s happened. You haven’t talked to Porrim like this in ages you’ve been so caught up in going out with your matesprit and school… and hangovers yeah you should probably cut back on the clubbing. 

You’ll figure out how you’re going to handle all of this eventually though. If Pyralspite can do for Terezi what she did for you her blindness might not even be a big hindrance, in fact she might do better without her sight. In fact as you sit there with Porrim, you find yourself calming down in another way. It’s harder and harder to remember why you were so upset to begin with. Terezi was hurt yes, but there was something else… your mother. Wait, why did you forget that?

You try to voice your concerns about how you nearly forgot about your mother but when you start… the words don’t come. You find you’ve forgotten what you were so upset over again. There’s no alarm. No sense of panic as you forget that your mother is gone. You would find yourself unable to think of her. To just accept that your mother is not there at the moment but you don’t need to worry about where she is. 

Everything’s fine.


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know too much about magical torture for my own good

The pain was immeasurable. They’d impaled your wrists on long black needles from the wall and left you hanging above the floor, another long needle through your feet with a weight hanging off of it, blood running down your front from the deep cuts that crisscrossed from your shoulders to your hips and down your cheeks where the Emissary had burned out your eyes. You are Neophyte Redglare, ex Lawbringer of the High Throne and you know exactly what’s become of you. 

You’re in the Tower. 

The Tower was an ever moving structure only accessible to those who knew where it would be, and to the Court of Everdeath. The Court was Responsible for the subjugation of coldbloods and mutants, for maintaining order in Kingdom, and for harvesting anyone who broke taboo. They were the Antithesis to the Lawbringers who sought to uphold Order through Justice and Respect rather than fear and attrition of the “less desirable castes”. 

A heavy door opens and you hear footsteps approaching you, the clink of amulets and talismans and the swish of robes before a voice speaks, smooth, confident and condescending, “Neophyte Redglare.” 

You sneer, an act requiring effort with how much everything seems to hurt, “Snowman.” The High Priestess of the Court, the Scourge of the South and the Instigator of the Forgotten War, she was the one person you never wanted to meet in person, at least not unless you were on Pyralspite’s back. 

“I will admit I was surprised when the Emissary informed me you’d given up yourself to save your child this fate, you had so much potential,” she tsks and you hear her moving to one side of your cell, “But the Emissary… insisted that you be the one here and we leave your children where they are, as much as I hate leaving any sort of loose end I am bound to respect his requests.” 

You chuckle, “More like he’s got you whipped,” yes, clearly being as snarky as possible is the way to deal with your inevitable eternal torment. Piss off your torturer, atta girl. You got what you wanted though; Terezi and Latula will be safe. 

“Mm, an interesting choice of words,” you hear the barbs of the whip arch back and the scream that’s torn from your throat as the poisoned barbs rip into your flesh and drag across feels like someone’s poured molten metal into your flesh and it lingers, you’re left there in anguish as the poison burns your flesh and it feels like ages before it finally starts to fade. 

The moment it does however and the whistle of the whip’s barbs comes and it starts all over. You scream and twist and writhe on the spikes keeping you up, blood running down your front and it happens again and again and again. You must lose consciousness at some point because you suddenly find yourself being splashed with ice cold water, leaving you sputtering and shaking. 

“I suggest you mind your tongue Redglare,” she scolds in an almost motherly tone of voice and you can smell smoke being blown in your face, “Your family might be safe but they will not even be aware that you’re gone or anything is amiss. You know how the Court works, we’ve already ensured that neither Latula or Terezi will know you’re gone.” 

You try to make another snappy come back but you just manage a pained whimper. You would rather them not know you were in this situation, because if they suspected or they remembered they might blame themselves, Latula the anxiety ridden mess she was and Terezi for being the one you sacrificed yourself for. Worse yet was the idea they might attempt to free you and end up here alongside you. 

“We have many long sessions ahead of us together Redglare,” comes her calm and collected voice again and you feel a puling gem pressed to your chest, your skin itching as your wounds start to magically stitch themselves back together. “Maybe you’ll even find yourself looking forward to my company, who knows?”

You spend rest of the day in Snowman’s “company”, the whip shreds into your flesh and burns your body, it starts to fade and then the whip strikes again, and then again, and again. You pass out and then she heals you and the process starts all over again. You can only hang there and hold on to the fact that it isn’t Terezi here. That she will live because you sacrificed yourself. 

Every strike of the whip is worth knowing that.


End file.
